Audiences flock to Jordan Peele's 'Get Out'

by Ryan Painter, KUTV

Weekend Box Office - Feb. 24-26, 2017

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) - With the Academy Awards happening this weekend you'd almost be forgiven if you forgot to check the weekend totals. Particularly when you consider that the only films opening were Jordan Peele's horror film "Get Out" (which wasn't screened for local press), "Rock Dog," a low-budget animated film, and "Collide," an action film that is only noteworthy because it stars Nicholas Hoult and Felicity Jones.

The funny thing about the weekend is that those who were able to see "Get Out" absolutely loved it. The general buzz has been building for the past couple of weeks and that managed to push the $4.5-million film to a weekend total of $30.5 million. Even more impressive is the 100-percent Rotten Tomatoes score (which essentially means every critic who saw it gave it a positive review). "Rock Dog" finished with $3.7 million and "Collide" managed only $1.5 million.

In second place for the weekend is "The LEGO Batman Movie" with $19 million. Its domestic total sits at $133 million and a worldwide total of $226 million. That's still well short of "The LEGO Movie's" worldwide total of $469 million. The film certainly won't lose money, but at this point I don't see it making more than $300-350 million. That has to be something of a disappointment for Warner Bros.

"John Wick: Chapter 2" continues to impress as it added $9 million over the weekend. Its domestic total is nearly $75 million. Considering the first film's worldwide total was $88.7 million, Lionsgate has to be ecstatic with the sequel performance. Add in the international numbers and "Chapter 2" has already earned $125 million. Hopefully we'll see a third chapter before 2020.

Fourth place belongs to "The Great Wall" with $8.7 million. The Chinese action film starring Matt Damon has earned $34 million domestically. While that might not seem that impressive, it's actually better than I thought the film would do. The real story is the film's international popularity, where it has already made more than $200 million - most of that coming from China. In the end the film will surpass $300 million worldwide, but it's really hard to say at this point if that will cover all the production and advertising costs.

Rounding out the top five is "Fifty Shades Darker" with $7.7 million. That pushes the "Fifty Shades of Grey" sequel over the $100 million mark in America. Worldwide the film has pushed well past $320 million. "Darker" won't match "Grey's" $571 million worldwide take, but the profit margin will still be massive. "Fifty Shades Darker" only cost $55 million to make.